How Obama admin is skewing data, creating illusion of falling jobless numbers

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Via Robert Reich @ The Guardian blog:

President Obama’s only chance for rebutting Republican claims that he’s responsible for a bad economy is to point to a positive trend. Voters respond to economic trends as much as they respond to absolute levels of economic activity. Under ordinary circumstances, January’s unemployment rate of 8.3% would be terrible. But compared to September’s 9.1%, it looks quite good. And the trend line – 9% in October, 8.6% in November, 8.5% in December, and now 8.3% – is enough to make Democrats gleeful.

The new 8.3% unemployment number is such a scam. As pointed out on Zero Hedge:

it appears that the people not in the labor force exploded by an unprecedented record 1.2 million. No, that’s not a typo: 1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in one month! So as the labor force increased from 153.9 million to 154.4 million, the non institutional population increased by 242.3 million meaning, those not in the labor force surged from 86.7 million to 87.9 million. Which means that the civilian labor force tumbled to a fresh 30 year low of 63.7% as the BLS is seriously planning on eliminating nearly half of the available labor pool from the unemployment calculation.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

How can the BLS just drop 1.2 million people from the labor market? In one month no less.

Rush Limbaugh sums up this data nicely:

But the raw numbers, 130 million jobs in December, 128 million jobs in January, give or take a couple hundred thousand either side. But when the seasonal adjustments take place, there is a gain of 200, whatever they’re reporting, 33,000 jobs. Now, what’s happening is the labor force is shrinking. There are fewer jobs. Even the Drive-Bys, so excited, they can’t wait to report the good news, but even they are reporting that the labor force participation rate, number of jobs out there, is continuing to dwindle, and most of the jobs being created are low wage.

But none of that’s gonna matter. None of it’s gonna matter. I don’t want to be an “I told you so,” but way back last year, even recently toward the end of last year, this being an election year, I predicted. But you knew. You knew what was gonna happen when this year started. You knew that the statistics are that no president has ever been reelected when the unemployment rate’s over 8%. So guess what it’s gonna be by the time we get to Election Day? It’s just that simple.

Yep. The left will stop at nothing to get Obama re-elected.

Video: 2012 Chevy Camaro ZL1 on the ‘Ring

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As the old saying goes ”there’s no substitute for horsepower.”

Check out the following video of the 580 HP Camaro ZL1 at the Nurburgring. The Camaro pulls 172 mph at the 7:35 mark.

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Not quite as fast as the Corvette ZR1, but still an excellent run.

Interesting Graph: How charities and religion (should) solve the problem of social spending

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Found this very interesting graph at the Adam Smith Institute.

Via ASI:

As they show in Figure 1. (pg 259 of the paper) European welfare states (such as Sweden, Denmark, France, Germany, Norway etc.) experience traditionally high levels of social spending (measured as a % of GDP) while simultaneously religious beliefs (measured by the importance of God in a person’s life) are not very high (averaging between 4 and 5 on a 1 to 10 scale). On the other hand, countries in which religious beliefs play an important role (between 7,5 and 8,5 on the same scale) in an individual’s everyday life (such as the US, Ireland, Canada, Portugal) the level of spending tends to be much lower, 5 to 10 percent on average, thus strengthening their initial hypothesis. Therefore religion could act as a substitute for an inadequate level of state funded social insurance.

Very interesting trend. The ASI article concludes with this:

Charitable donations can be tracked in the same direction; due to the fact that more people tend to privately solve the coordination problem in the demand for social insurance, there is less need for the state to step in and provide it.

 
If this is indeed true, it should act as a signal to countries such as the UK or Ireland to lower their welfare spending, since private incentives and charitable organizations are likely to take over from the government and provide services such as child day care, private schools, hospital care, retirement homes, homeless shelters, soup kitchens etc. The Salvation Army does just that, as do many other UK organizations. Perhaps it isn’t quite sure how much the private sector can ‘offload’ the government in its welfare spending, but it should be given a chance to do so, particularly in the Anglo-Saxon countries where social capital is undoubtedly very high.

Private charities are always more effective than government.

Sunday Morning Links: The Fictitious Beverage Edition

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I found these imaginative designs for fictional beverages at justinvg’s photostream.

Romulan Ale. Too cool.

Now, on to the links…

Bunker: Romney says “I hope we’re ultimately able to eliminate some of the differences, and repeal the bad and keep the good.”
CH2.0: Decoding the Leftist Narrative
CP: The State Of Our Disunion
The Eye: See What Google Thinks It Knows About You
TBA has a nice weekend round up.

LAS: My First Demotivational Poster
MTTM: Michigan Served As Valuable Lesson Against Government Economic Efforts
Moonbattery: Tantrums on the Tarmac
Political Realities: The Buffett Rule and Paying a “Fair Share”
Pundette: “The Obama administration has earned its totalitarian cred anew”

RR: Fred Thompson Endorses Newt Gingrich (VIDEO)
Spellchek asks a great question: “Who is killing more Americans, Iran or Mexico?”
SJ: How will history judge this generation if we let our republic slip away?
TMGGB: Elderly Florida Woman Emulates Hero, John Wayne
theCL on the  “Kim Kardashian of the GOP”
Gator: So, why don’t Democrats believe in science?

Roug: A Job Is A Job Is A Job
WWTFT: Three Years Into an Obama Nation
ChrisWy: Friday Fratricide
FCBZ: Rick Santorum’s Young, Special Needs Daughter Isabella Has Been Hospitalized
The Pup: Illinois Democrats Pass Discriminatory Law Against Those Who Need Drain Cleaner

Detroit Lions ‘Well Represented’ on 50 Worst Head Coach List & Funny Coach Video

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BleacherReport.com has complied a list of the 50 worst NFL head coaches of all time. The Detroit Lions are ‘well represented’ on the list:

46) Dick Jauron

28) Marty Mornhinweg

15) Darryl Rogers

5) Rod Marinelli

I’m surprised that “The General” Bobby Ross didn’t make the list. I guess the guys didn’t want to seem like the were picking on the Lions by populating a full 10% of the list with former Lion head coaches.

By the way, Coach Ross appears at  2:30 of this great video because, as he says,  ”I don’t coach that way”

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Too funny…

Obama Demands Taxpayers Increase Funding For Overpriced Universities

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Trying to buy votes Barry?

“You’re the ones who need help,” the president told students gathered at the University of Michigan’s Al Glick Field House.

“A quarter of all millionaire [earners] pay lower taxes than millions of middle-class households. t… [audience boos] Is that fair? … does it make sense to you? … do we want to invest in things like… student loans and grants?”

He called on Congress to cut the interest rate on government loans to students, and said he had already limited graduates’ monthly payments on government loans to 10 percent of their after-tax income.

It seems the college aged Obama was busy honing his street agitation skills rather than hitting the ECON 101 books.

If he were truly serious about bringing college costs down, Obama would stop advocating policies (i.e. easy student loans & grants) that artificially increase demand for college. Any high school student can tell you when demand increases, prices will increase.

As pointed out previously here at MCT, if the government would stop artificially inflating demand by funneling tax payer money to colleges, prices would drop in a hurry:

One way to drive down the cost of college tuition is getting the government out of the business of student loans. Every time government becomes involved in an economic activity, it becomes more expensive. If government student loans are severely limited and Universities see fewer students attending their hallowed halls of higher learning, cost of tuition will drop in a hurry.

Of course, it’s tough to buy college student votes if politicians can’t pull the strings of student loans.

Global warming… I mean climate change… Is so 2009

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According to a study released by the U.K government shows a sharp decline in public ‘concern’ in global warming. Sorry. Climate change.

Via The Mail (UK):

The number of people willing to alter the way they live in the hope of making a difference to global warming fell by around 10 per cent last year.

There was also a sharp drop in those who regarded themselves as ‘fairly concerned’ about climate change.

The figures, released by the Government yesterday, suggest that doubts about global warming have been growing since the summer of 2009.

This was before the damage inflicted on the cause by the ‘Climategate’ scandal later that year, in which leading scientists were accused of manipulating data to support the case of man-made climate change.

The credibility of global warming and concern about halting it appears to have been affected by the succession of three cold winters between 2008 and 2010.

The study also shows that there is a growing skepticism about green energy as well.

More recently, doubts about the efficiency of wind turbines and the high costs of the Coalition’s drive for renewable energy have seen enthusiasm for the cause dwindling.

Fewer than two thirds now say they are at least ‘fairly concerned’ about climate change or that they are prepared to do something about it, figures published by the Department for Transport said.

While it is good to see people waking up, there still is a significant (nearly two thirds) portion of the British population is still on board with the global warming fraud / hoax.

An extra big tip O’ the hat to Tom Nelson for high lighting the article.

A video all leftists should watch

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This short video from the Adam Smith Institute is informative and interesting.

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I like the bit about “this is mistake Karl Marx made.”

Scary Graphs: Why I don’t feel like I’m getting ahead

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If you ever get the ‘I’m not getting ahead’ feeling, the following graphs from the National Inflation Association will help explain why you feel this way.

The median American family was earning over $100,000 per year in today’s dollars during the 1970s.

The average American has been earning less per hour (adjusted for real inflation) and seeing a decline in their standard of living since the early 1970s after we left the gold standard.The Dow Jones divided by the price of gold. After the inflationary crisis of the 1970s, the Dow/Gold ratio bottomed at 1

There has been a whole lot of inflation happening over the past few decades, and as the above graphs illustrate, the average American has been losing ground in real purchasing power.

So, if you here the “hey, the DOW is over 1300 so the economy is back and Obama is great” spin, remember the above graphs. And these graphs as well.